Name of your website?Magical Merimbula
Your name?
Jason Campbell
Your Location (city, etc)
Merimbula, NSW, Australia
Please give us a short summary of your website?
This website is about the great tourist town that is Merimbula.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
Seeing other websites about Merimbula did not seem to do justice to the area. I wanted to provide an easy to navigate site while providing spectacular imagery, along with meaningful information.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
My fist website was www.win32developer.com , which is a tutorial site about programming under the Microsoft Windows platform. It was launched sometime in 2008.
I have worked on 'inherrited' websites for years. But it was time to take the bull by the horns and do something from scratch.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
It was easy. 'Magical Merimbula', because this is where I live and the town and locals are truly 'Magical'.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
I hope to offer are more vibrant approach to depicting the area. Other sites I have seen are relatively drab, or too confusing to navigate.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
I am planning on keeping the site and over time, fill it with many pages with interesting information. If also gives me a chance to get out on the weekend and take photo's of the places that I may not have been in years.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
It has been more of an investment of time, not so much money, as I have been able to do the whole site from scratch in any spare hours I can manage to get a hold of.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
I dont think it would change too much. I am pretty happy where things are heading.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
It would be a challenge. But I am up for the challenge.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
The main headaches I have had to deal with is cross-browser compatability.
You get to a point where you are happy with how the page looks and then go and view it under firefox or safari and it is all over the place.
It can be a challenge but I am very pedantic about making my site look consistent between various browsers.
What has been your biggest challenge?
The biggest challenge is finding time to put it all together. Having a day job and a family doesn't leave too many hours in the day.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Mainly word of mouth with town locals and the odd blog post here and there.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
Not really. All is going as planned so far, thankfully.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
The site was launched 26th March 2009. This is a long term project so, it will be getting updated on a permenant basis.
What is your website address?
Magical Merimbula
